Grim's Hall

Grim's Hall

Thursday, January 31, 2008

posted by Eric 14:54

War is war is war.

LT G needs some sleep.
Labels: Deployments, Iraq, Lack of Sleep, Men, Military, Possibilities, Price of Empire

posted by Joel L 12:43

SANS CONSERVATISM!

The last Republican candidate’s debate took place at the Reagan Library last night. For those of you with better things to do than follow these things let me summarize last night’s performance by the candidates: PATHETIC!

I have lost any shred of patience that I may have had with these ridiculous so called “debates.” To begin with I am sick and tired of these candidates carrying on about who is the most conservative or most like Reagan. Allow me to resolve this issue. NEITHER MCCAIN NOR ROMNEY IS CONSERVATIVE AND THEY BEAR NO RESEMBLANCE TO REAGAN!!!!!!!!!

Let me be very clear, American conservatism has historically been defined by its commitment to preserving the limited role of the federal government established in the Constitution. Part and parcel of this commitment to limited government has been an insistence on both a proper balance between state and federal power as well as a respect for the separation of powers between the different government branches. Limited government has been the first principal of American conservative thought from the beginning. Consequently, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Ronald Reagan constantly emphasized his commitment to limited government and state’s rights throughout his political career. However, neither McCain nor Romney ever mentions limited government and you can find no reference to this first principle of conservatism on either of their web pages.

To be sure, these two candidates will go on an on about lower taxes and reduced spending. While lower taxes and debt reduction are a good start they represent nothing more than temporary relief from the symptoms endemic to the metastasizing cancer of bloated government. Taxes and debt can, and almost certainly will, be raised by subsequent administrations as the size and scope of government increases. Look not to promises of lower taxes and debt reduction to provide a lasting defense to government intrusion. Those so called champions will ultimately fail.

Between Romney and McCain it is probably McCain that is most clueless on the issue of limited government. I say clueless because if he truly understands the implications of his campaign finance reform crusade to get money and influence out of politics he is intentionally flirting with fascism. Does that sound a little strong? Look at it this way: a cursory glance at the encyclopedic size of our tax code, let alone the ever-growing volumes of other federal regulations, provides a startling look at the way the federal government touches almost every aspect of our daily lives. This should come as no surprise since the government uses tax policy for social engineering purposes to affect desired outcomes. Consequently, groups of citizens from every walk of life regularly come together to petition government in order to protect themselves or benefit from this growing government intrusion. These groups of citizens are what McCain derisively refers to as “special interests” and whose voice he wants to muffle. However, these “special interests” include everyone from artists to zoologists.

Everyone has an interest that needs protection or influence from government that is special to them. There are no “special interests,” there are just interests. Since the government created this situation by extending its tentacles into every nook and cranny of our national life you can’t blame these groups or their lobbyists for trying to influence the outcome to their benefit. Nevertheless, this me-first power scramble and the influence peddling that results is hardly a positive development. However, the way to deal with this problem is not to clamp down on the citizen’s right to make his voice heard but rather to restrain the government intrusions that make such lobbying necessary in the first place. If the federal government did less then fewer people would waste time and money lobbying it. What McCain’s campaign finance law seeks to do is restrict the citizen’s ability to make his/her voice heard on these matters while doing nothing to restrain government reach and power. Consequently, power is dramatically shifted to the government (and incumbent politicians) at the expense of the citizenry. Political Schemes that strengthen the power of the government and weaken the 1st Amendment rights of citizens is anything but conservative.

I want to like McCain. I admire his heroic service as well as the courageous position he took in supporting the surge when so many weak-kneed Republicans were more interested in seeking political cover. However, I can’t help but be turned off when he advocates restricting speech without saying one word about shrinking government power and influence. The remarkably deaf ear that he turned to the public outcry against his illegal immigrant amnesty plan only deepens my concern regarding his demeaning attitude towards citizen speech.

I miss Fred Thompson!!!
Labels: Conservatism, political double talk, Politics

posted by Grim 04:49

A Winter Question:
They were so excited about the snow:
Traffic policeman Murtadha Fadhil, huddling under a balcony to keep dry, declared the snow "a new sign of the new Iraq."

"It's a sign of hope. We hope Iraqis will purify their hearts and politicians will work for the prosperity of all Iraqis."
What do you think they'll say about the hail?

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

posted by Grim 05:31

Posting Bail:
Is it bad that the US uses bail bondsmen?
Other countries almost universally reject and condemn Mr. Spath’s trade, in which defendants who are presumed innocent but cannot make bail on their own pay an outsider a nonrefundable fee for their freedom.

“It’s a very American invention,” John Goldkamp, a professor of criminal justice at Temple University, said of the commercial bail bond system. “It’s really the only place in the criminal justice system where a liberty decision is governed by a profit-making businessman who will or will not take your business.”
While I'm always willing to hear good ideas, whether from Europe or anywhere else, I don't think we have an obligation to do something just because it's common in Europe. That said, just what do you do in Europe if you can't post bail?
Some [countries] simply keep defendants in jail until trial.
Oh, yes, that's a much better system. :P
Others ask defendants to promise to turn up for trial.
Um... what?
Some make failure to appear a separate crime.
OK, that makes sense -- but if they were going to run from the murder charge, how much is the extra 30 days really going to deter them?
Some impose strict conditions on release, like reporting to the police frequently.
Again, right -- "Sure, officer, I'll be right by your office." ("Swissair, thank you for holding.")
Some make defendants liable for a given sum should they fail to appear but do not collect it up front. Others require a deposit in cash from the defendant, family members or friends, which is returned when the defendant appears.
Which is fine; but that assumes the defendent or his family has the money to start with. Since poverty and crime are very often observed together, that system (unlike the evil profit-motive American system) denies the poor a chance at freedom while they await the trial that will decide if they are in fact guilty.

So why does the American system work like it does?
If Mr. Spath considers a potential client a good risk, he will post bail in exchange for a nonrefundable 10 percent fee.... Forty percent of people released on bail are eventually acquitted or have the charges against them dropped.
Which is to say that sixty percent don't. So, here's the business proposition: you put up 100% of the money, and your client pays you 10% of that sum in return. If he shows up, you get your money back; if not, you lose everything you put up. So, you're betting 10% against 100%.

Oh, and 60% of your clients are criminals.

Normally, when you take a serious risk with a large sum of money, you expect a pretty good potential return on your investment. In return for the risk that you'll lose everything, you expect a reasonable profit.

The fellow in the article says it costs $50,000 a month to run his business; that apparently does not include the actual money he has to come up with, as he invests around $13 million a year in bonds. If he's paying $600,000 a year in costs, but is clearing 1.3 million, that leaves him with $700,000 profit on a $13 million investment: not 10%, but around 5%.

That's not really running away with the bank. And it sounds like, compared to other systems cited by the NYT, you've got a system that works better for the government ("Promise you'll come back for trial") and the poor ("Sure, you can go -- if you can prove you've got the money to pay the fee for nonappearance").

Meanwhile, it's not that hard to find a much safer investment that'll give you a 5% return.

I don't know -- it sounds reasonable to me. I'm just not seeing the villiany.

Monday, January 28, 2008

posted by Grim 23:32

Totten: "The Final Mission"
Michael Totten has a piece up on Marines training the Fallujah police. We (that is, not me and Totten, but just those of us here at the HQ) were talking about how much Fallujah has changed just last night. They're doing 5k races out there, PTing in the streets with no armor, etc. (Apparently the third place winner ran with his pistol; which is pretty good, for coming in third.) That said, I didn't realize that we'd reduced force presence by 90%, however.

It's a good thing that Totten is so famous for his accuracy and fairness. Otherwise, I wouldn't believe his characterization of this:
The Marine Corps runs the American mission in Fallujah, but some of the Police Transition Team members are Military Police officers culled from the Texas National Guard. “We're like the red-headed stepchild of units,” one MP told me. “We're from different units from all over Texas, as well as from the Marine Corps.”

One Texas MP used to be a Marine. “I decided I would rather defend my state than my country,” he said jokingly. “But here I am, back in Iraq.”
"Jokingly," eh? Sure. :)

posted by Grim 07:33

Thanks, UGA:
A tragically non-ironic article from Red and Black, by the fittingly named Ms. Queen:
Before this semester, I had overlooked the most fundamental political issue: myself. I, as a woman, have been historically oppressed since the beginning of time and yet this issue has been completely overlooked, not just by myself, but by society as a whole.

However, thanks to my women's studies course I have been given a new set of eyes, a feminist lens through which I now see the world.
UGA charges about fiven thousand dollars a year for this service; and thanks to the HOPE scholarship, that means that I myself am likely a contributor.

You won't find any surprises in the article itself; it's just depressing to discover that the schools are still plugging this same line into people. You'd have thought that Women's Studies would have moved on past "That jerk, Pat Robertson said..." and "Men don't have to worry about their hair!" Oh, and "You can't divorce your abuser because you'll end up on welfare!", in a society in which divorce rates run about 50% and women earn the majority of college degrees.

Maybe we can get a bill through the Georgia Legislature to restrict the HOPE Scholarship to traditional arts and sciences.

posted by Grim 05:28

Pills, Pills:
Reason magazine is ready for them. Quite ready:
Owens posits this case: You have developed some nagging doubts about your partner's fidelity. Although you sometimes think your doubts are irrational, you remember certain lingering looks at parties, and your happiness is spoiled. You're not the sort to hire a private detective, but you have heard of a new pharmaceutical, the anti-doubt pill, Credon. Credon lulls your suspicious nature, but doesn't make you gullible to car sales people. It works only in the context of intimate relationships. The manufacturer does warn that Credon has sometimes generated excessive trust between lovers. So off you go to "The Pharmacy of the Future" for Credon.

Once there, the conscientious pharmacist confirms that Credon does usually work, but asks if you've considered alternative treatments. For example, why not take the new anti-possessiveness pill Libermine? Patients using Libermine don't care if their partners have an occasional fling. Or why be a couple at all? Solox, the emotional independence pill, enables patients to have a wide and emotionally satisfying circle of friends but liberates them from the tedium of having only one intimate partner. Owens then posits that the price of Credon is about as much as for a candy bar, while Libermine and Solox costs as much as good bottle of wine. So on what grounds do you choose among these options?

Owens suggests that one response might be that it's "normal" to want to be in relationship. The pharmacist reminds you that people born with extra Solox in their brains are just as "natural" as people without it. Surely you would agree that such free spirits should not be regarded as somehow inadequate. Another response is that taking Libermine would so change you that you wouldn't be you anymore. Of course, the whole point of taking Credon is to change you so that you, in some respects, aren't you anymore.

So why not flip a coin? Would that mean that the choice doesn't matter any more to you than choosing between two brands of coffee? Surely one's emotional state and the state of one's most intimate relationship should matter more than choosing between Bustelo and Starbucks.
Reason's summation is that "trial and error" will determine the best choice -- not for you, obviously, but for society as a whole, eventually. So really, a random choice may be the best way to go.

Or let the market decide, and just pick the cheap one.

Anyway, you'll be happier regardless, right? Whether you just believe your spouse is not cheating, or you are happy for him or her to cheat, or you just walk away and never care about them again... as long as you feel better, that's what matters.

Is it not?

posted by Grim 05:09

Hell on Earth:
I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for the unfortunate subjects of China just now.
The snow struck as tens of millions of Chinese head home to celebrate the Lunar New Year, starting on February 7 this year, straining trains and planes even in normal times.

At the main rail station in Guangzhou in the relatively warm commercial far south, 170,000 people crammed together waiting for trains that cannot leave because of electric trains stranded downline, Xinhua news agency reported.

By the end of Monday, a backlog of 600,000 waiting for trains from the city was expected. Television showed green-uniformed anti-riot troops ready to keep order around the station.
I've traveled by train in China during the runup to the Lunar New Year. It's astonishing. Somewhat more than half of China's billion-plus population just... gets up and moves. And then they move back in a few days. If you've ever flown at Christmas, imagine that pain times ten.

And that's in a good year, without the snowstorms.

This has pretty much got to suck.
The government has not announced deaths due to freezing in homes. But homes south of the Yangtze River generally do not receive central heating and are not built for such icy weather.
That's true too. We sealed up our little hovel with layers of plastic bubblewrap over the windows and doors, laid down rugs over the cracks in the floor, and made candles out of fish oil and strips of cotton cut from the wife's underwear. Fortunately, the place was so small that you could actually generate enough heat out of some homemade candles to keep from freezing to death.

Yeah, good times. Take a moment to think warm thoughts for those poor folks.

posted by Grim 00:27

Rifle-company Intel Cells:
Once again, the Marine Corps leads the way. The databasing/sharing concept is the most important one. Companies, like any other military unit, have seams with other units -- they control a given area, but the enemy moves in and out of that area. What happens here matters across the way, and vice versa. Better sharing is critical.

Too, analysis tends to get better with experience, but added responsibility and distance degrades the benefit. The G2 section normally is better at recognizing patterns and important details than the S2, because its members have more experience with it. They have a problem in being responsible for a lot more areas, so they can't focus down on any given area except periodically. They have an additional problem in being distant: instead of dealing with the area eyes-on, day in and out, they're often learning by reading reports. Even the best report leaves out a lot of information that you get by being there, and looking things over -- information that may not seem important now, but that might be later.

Adding extra eyes to your data can compensate for that to a certain degree. If you have two guys with less experience looking at the data, they may still both miss the pattern; but it's better than just one guy. And the closer you get to the grunts on the ground, the more you'll be drawing on patterns they've seen playing out. They've got all that 'extra' information that isn't captured in their reports, the stuff they saw or heard that didn't seem important or relevant at the time -- but that can come out when they get together and compare notes with the company across the way.

Better sharing across companies, as well as up-and-down between organizational levels, has the potential to substantially improve predictive analysis on the ground. The Corps is doing something smart here; but that's what we expect from the Marines.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

posted by Grim 23:51

The Flounder Principle:
InstaPundit today links back to something he wrote that I missed before, on 'the Flounder principle.' It's a remarkably useful concept where politicians are concerned.

This is a good time of year to think about it, too. Right now is the time when politicians are making deals and endorsements, and then getting out and promising us stuff -- either campaign promises of their own, or promises about the other politicians they're endorsing.

As always, the question to ask yourself is, "Why should I believe a word of this?" If there's not some very good reason why, it's probably not going to happen after election day.

Just remember: when you find yourself on the same side as Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, it's probably time to check your six and your compass.

I mean, it's going to happen once in a while, because like all politicians they adopt any position that is useful to him for a moment. Just recognize it as a warning sign, and take a second to be sure you're really where you want to be -- and check whether anyone is slipping something up on you.

Not that endorsements are a great way to make up your mind about a candidate anyway. Otherwise, we'd all be voting Huckabee.

After all, Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink. Once, Chuck Norris visited the Virgin Islands: now, they're just "the Islands."

At least, so I've heard.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

posted by Grim 22:19

Crimson Skies:
Popular Science has been running a series on zeppelins of the future. Sky pirates can only be around the corner.

posted by Grim 22:14

Horses on the Border:
An article tracks the mounted Border Patrol. Photo 2 in the slideshow is beautiful.

posted by Grim 02:25

Down with the General!
Order #1, that is. Best of the Web reports:
Our item yesterday on a homeless-vets story brought numerous responses along the lines of this one, from a reader who asks not to be identified:
I love the column, and I agree about the tiresome "homeless vet" stereotype. I must disagree, however, with your conclusion that the soldier who received vodka disguised as Scope must have had other problems to begin with.

A college friend of mine is an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. His latest tour in Iraq was a staff position, meaning long days in a command office. When a group of us got together to send him care packages, he enjoyed the movies and candy bars, and loved the cigars. But he particularly appreciated the Maker's Mark and the port we sent. He and some fellow Marine officers spent last New Year's Eve smoking a cigar and sipping a cocktail from the roof of their building as Marine 155's fired artillery over their heads at insurgent positions in Fallujah. It must have been some spectacle, and I am happy for the small role we played in giving them a moment to relax.

The reason it worked out is that we disguised the spirits, much as Mike Lally's mother did. In order not to "offend our Arab hosts," alcoholic beverages are not allowed. As we were transferring the spirits into plastic bottles (port looks a lot like Ocean Spray Cranberry, while whiskey looks passably like Cran-Apple), my wife and I felt a bit silly, but we agreed that is was preposterous that a 37-year-old officer, a helicopter pilot entrusted with great responsibility, a husband and father of three with a B.S. and an M.B.A., fighting for freedom in a foreign country, couldn't have a glass of wine or whiskey while away from his wife and kids for Christmas and New Year's. No, he doesn't have a drinking problem, but as a grown man he certainly is entitled to a drink on New Year's Eve, and it was worth our feeling "silly" to give him that chance.

So, although the AP story deserves your criticism, please don't assume that Mr. Lally or his mother do as well, nor the thousands of others who just want to sit back off-duty after a long day and have a drink while they unwind. The notion that they are drunks is as invidious a cliché as that which the AP repeats. Spare the criticism for the policy that makes grown, responsible people employ such adolescent tactics just to give a man a chance to a pleasure that we at home enjoy and take for granted.
OK, we're convinced.
Hear, hear.

I haven't been drinking out of any plastic bottles (except the water bottles we get distributed here); and in fact, it's gone so far that I've developed something akin to a taste for this, in spite of its 0.5 overall rating. Still the best beer on VBC.

posted by Grim 00:33

Hitchens on Thomas Paine:
An interesting review of what is probably an interesting book.

posted by Grim 00:17

Since Janne Liked It So Well:
The NYT has decided to make a series out of their blunders; and therefore so has Iowahawk.

Click through the Iowahawk link for a few more, just as good.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

posted by Eric 18:23

"If they get out of line, just slag 'em."

That's the message I got from this article in the Guardian this morning:

"The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists."
Now, I actually worked with one of the guys that authored this thing: Gen. Shalikashvili, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after Powell. My impression of him was that he was a pretty conventional general officer, not given to hyperbole, or overstatement. That he put his name to this impresses me some.

However, I don't think the US or any of the other nuke-capable NATO members are going to be the first to light off a nuke on somebody's ass. Someone else is going to have to cross that particular line.
Labels: Military, More than Meets the Eye, Nuclear Combat, Possibilities, Strategy

posted by Grim 01:02

Democrats Beat Each Other With Sticks:
Cage match primaries are always fun:
Obama told the former first lady he was helping unemployed workers on the streets of Chicago when "you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart."

Moments later, Clinton said that she was fighting against misguided Republican policies "when you were practicing law and representing your contributor ... in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago."
It's also not a good sign for John Edwards that when he asks, "Are there three people in this debate, not two?", everyone thinks of Bill Clinton.

Actually, I'm learning quite a bit from the fistfight. The reporter says:
A blind trust held by Clinton and her husband, the former president, included stock holdings in Wal-Mart. They liquidated the contents of the blind trust in 2007 because of investments that could pose conflicts of interest or prove embarrassing as she ran for president.

Chicago real estate developer and fast food magnate Antoin "Tony" Rezko was a longtime fundraiser for Obama. Prosecutors have charged him with fraud, attempted extortion and money laundering in what they allege was a scheme to get campaign money and payoffs from firms seeking to do business before two state boards.
Are these really equivalent charges? Obama used his law degree to further the interest of a slumlord charged with extortion and money laundering... but Clinton used to own Wal-Mart stock? What?

It's not like you have to do a lot of research here -- Rose Law Firm? Billing Records? Cattle Futures? What's so bad about Wal-Mart?

Sunday, January 20, 2008

posted by Eric 23:59

Embracing the Suck.

I've now followed a number of soldiers' blogs as they write about their experiences 'over there'.

The most recent I've started follow is LT G.

Read his words at "Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal".

The LT has a way with words. And, unlike most, he's introduced his fellow soldiers.

(via Acute Politics)
Labels: Deployments, Iraq, Men, Military

posted by Eric 23:43

Evil Black Gun meets Hello Kitty.

Ain't that the cutest lil' thing? I truly think the magazine is just the right touch.

(via American Digest)
Labels: Culture--base-common-and-popular, curiosities, Gun Fightin', Guns, Guns and Girls

Saturday, January 19, 2008

posted by Grim 01:45

Jim Bowie at the Alamo:
This day 1836, Jim Bowie arrived at the Alamo with thirty volunteers. I've occasionally thought of the Alamo over here, on those occasions we've had mortars or rockets. Of course we are not surrounded by an enemy army, nor in danger of being wiped out; the experience here is suggestive, more than similar. You do see "the rocket's red glare; the bombs bursting in air," quite literally in both cases, even though the insurgent's rocket of 2008 is probably somewhat less accurate than the British rocket of 1812.

That said, it does provide me the chance to reflect on the bravery of better men who have gone before. The Alamo is regularly celebrated here at Grim's Hall, and the model of gentlemen that defended her. Americans have long celebrated Crockett and Bowie -- see this collection of 'Bowie style' knives, made from the 1830s through the 1970s; others are still made today.

Bowie was a friend to the pirate Jean Lafitte, as was Andrew Jackson. As Byron wrote of Lafitte:

"He left a corsair’s name to other times,
Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes."

We celebrate the virtue, and forgive the crimes; may others remember us as kindly, in spite of ourselves.

UPDATE: On a related note, a question from a Fred Thompson rally:
Man: Fred, I drove over 500 miles to see you.

Thompson: Bless your heart. Let's give this man a hand. (Applause, cheers)

Man: I came over Finch Mountain in a snowstorm. (Pause) May I call you Fred?

Thompson: Absolutely.

Man: That's okay until January and I can call you Mr. President. (Laughter, more applause). Now, I've got a question.

Thompson: Yes sir.

Man: (Pause) I'm looking for a tall man who will stand tall for America. (Pause.) Who will cut the ears off of earmarks! (Pause.) Stop dead illegal immigration! (Pause.) And pull the teeth of activist judges...

Thompson: Yep.

Man: ... who take your house to build 7-Eleven! (Pause, then louder) And I want to know if you've got a Jim Bowie knife and a good strong pair (pause) of Channellock pliers! (Laughter, even more applause, calls of "That's right!" and "Hear, hear!")
The reporter finishes the report by sighing, "I hate being a Yankee."

We can certainly understand that. :)

Friday, January 18, 2008

posted by Grim 03:33

No Business in the White House, But:
Huckabee's not someone I'd endorse. On the other hand:
"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," Huckabee said at a Myrtle Beach campaign event. "In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole."
That was a great line.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

posted by Grim 23:30

Readings for Today:
Iowahawk notes the media menace:
A Denver newspaper columnist is arrested for stalking a story subject. In Cincinnati, a television reporter is arrested on charges of child molestation. A North Carolina newspaper reporter is arrested for harassing a local woman. A drunken Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member is arrested for wife beating. A Baltimore newspaper editor is arrested for threatening neighbors with a shotgun. In Florida, one TV reporter is arrested for DUI, while another is charged with carrying a gun into a high school. A Philadelphia news anchorwoman goes on a violent drunken rampage, assaulting a police officer. In England, a newspaper columnist is arrested for killing her elderly aunt.

Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence of that America's newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters?
With statistics like these, I think we know the answer.

Separately, Cassandra falls in love with a guy who learned from his daughter.
What I’ve come to realize is that there are really two people inside me: the Dude Self and the Dad Self. The Dude Self has an evolutionary mandate. Namely, to get his DNA into all available fertile females. This is how I explain the compulsion toward media sluts, who, after all, sow the fantasy that women exist only for the carnal pleasure of men.

But then there’s the Dad Self. The Dad Self has to worry about the survival of his wife and offspring. It might be said that his genetic material is heavily mortgaged. He regards women differently, especially if he has a daughter. Now he must think about the kind of world in which he’d like her to grow up, and especially how he’d like other males to treat her, which is to say not as a sexual chew toy, but with kindness and respect.
I'm not quite sure why those concepts are supposed to be opposed -- I'd always thought the idea was to manage both at the same time.

Anyway, I note the story to ask: if American Dad has to learn that he has to participate in a society that treats girls as ladies, in order to protect his daughters... what does American Mom have to learn about her sons?

I have my own ideas about that, and I expect most readers can guess what they are. But I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Monday, January 14, 2008

posted by Grim 07:29

Our Friend the Half-Wit:
We like you anyway, BloodSpite.

posted by Grim 07:05

Danton Loves Her, Too:
Hillary, that is.
Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Sunday that Barack Obama's campaign had injected racial tension into the presidential contest....

"This is an unfortunate story line the Obama campaign has pushed very successfully," the former first lady said in a spirited appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press.""I don't think this campaign is about gender, and I sure hope it's not about race."
L'audace!

Sunday, January 13, 2008

posted by Grim 03:49

Iraqi Heroes:
Michael Totten writes:
Iraqi Army soldiers have a terrible reputation for cowardice and corruption – especially in Baghdad – but it’s unfair to write them all off after reading the news out of Iraq’s capital Sunday. Three Iraqi Army soldiers tackled a suicide bomber at an Army Day parade and were killed when he exploded his vest....

These Iraqis deserve recognition, and they deserved to be recognized by their names. Yet I could not find their names cited in any media articles. All three of their names generate zero hits using Google at the time of this writing. I had to contact Baghdad myself to find out who they were. Lieutenant Colonel James Hutton was kind enough to pass their names on....

Here are the names of the three brave Iraqis who hurled themselves on an exploding suicide bomber.

Malik Abdul Ghanem
Asa’ad Hussein Ali
Abdul-Hamza Abdul-Hassan Rissan

They were friends the Americans and Iraqis did not know we had until they were gone.

posted by Grim 03:09

The New Fight:
The Marines are bored:
After preparing to confront one of the most deadly insurgencies America has ever faced, and steeped in the legend of Marine aggressiveness in the counterterrorist fight, the leathernecks of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines are fighting a pitched battle against boredom.

With violence across the province dropping precipitously over most of the past year, Marines who were girding for a brawl on this latest rotation have had to dial back their warrior ways for a softer approach.

Though their thoughts are tinged with disappointment, many are nevertheless practical about the new reality.

"There's not much going on this time around," said Cpl. Ken Dickerson, 1st squad leader with Lima Company, 3/3's 3rd Platoon. "But at least we're not losing anybody."
It's not so boring here -- we have some pretty aggressive operations ongoing. Yet it's also true that we haven't lost anybody lately. The combination of improved tactics and Iraqi cooperation with the COIN has vastly limited casualties versus last year.

Things can carry on like this just as long as they want.

posted by Grim 01:33

Moral Instincts:
Steven Pinker's latest is in the New York Times; and while I'm sure several of you will scoff at the idea of looking toward that source for hints on morality, it's an interesting read, when taken together with Joe's piece below. It treats the moral dimension in similar terms to those we have employed in debating genetic engineering.

One of the important areas comes when looking at whether there is a rational basis for morality. He cites two:
One is the prevalence of nonzero-sum games. In many arenas of life, two parties are objectively better off if they both act in a nonselfish way than if each of them acts selfishly. You and I are both better off if we share our surpluses, rescue each other’s children in danger and refrain from shooting at each other, compared with hoarding our surpluses while they rot, letting the other’s child drown while we file our nails or feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys. Granted, I might be a bit better off if I acted selfishly at your expense and you played the sucker, but the same is true for you with me, so if each of us tried for these advantages, we’d both end up worse off. Any neutral observer, and you and I if we could talk it over rationally, would have to conclude that the state we should aim for is the one in which we both are unselfish. These spreadsheet projections are not quirks of brain wiring, nor are they dictated by a supernatural power; they are in the nature of things.

The other external support for morality is a feature of rationality itself: that it cannot depend on the egocentric vantage point of the reasoner. If I appeal to you to do anything that affects me — to get off my foot, or tell me the time or not run me over with your car — then I can’t do it in a way that privileges my interests over yours (say, retaining my right to run you over with my car) if I want you to take me seriously. Unless I am Galactic Overlord, I have to state my case in a way that would force me to treat you in kind. I can’t act as if my interests are special just because I’m me and you’re not, any more than I can persuade you that the spot I am standing on is a special place in the universe just because I happen to be standing on it.

Not coincidentally, the core of this idea — the interchangeability of perspectives — keeps reappearing in history’s best-thought-through moral philosophies, including the Golden Rule (itself discovered many times); Spinoza’s Viewpoint of Eternity; the Social Contract of Hobbes, Rousseau and Locke; Kant’s Categorical Imperative; and Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance. It also underlies Peter Singer’s theory of the Expanding Circle — the optimistic proposal that our moral sense, though shaped by evolution to overvalue self, kin and clan, can propel us on a path of moral progress, as our reasoning forces us to generalize it to larger and larger circles of sentient beings.
One of the things we discussed in detail below was the peril to the Golden Rule as a limiting rule of ethics that could arise from tampering with inherited human nature. As we are, the Golden Rule limits us: but it could as easily, and just as rationally, become a license rather than a limitation if we are allowed to edit each other.

The Zero-Sum Game system for judging morality is a basis I hadn't considered. It suffers from one obvious limitation: by its nature, it limits moral judgments to utilitarian grounds. You can use these games to measure whether our sense of ethics is in accord with practical benefits: more food, say.

A key question of ethics, however, is establishing what the good is. Aristotle asserts, I believe correctly, that the rational part of the soul is not useful here: it is the emotive part that determines what is to be desired, and the rational part is limited to means-to-the-end. The Zero-Sum Game method is thus only good as a test for whether the means-to-the-end method is effective or not. As a result, its use as a test for ethics is quite limited.

UPDATE: The long section on what the author calls "trolleyology" demonstrates something important about the dilemma mentioned above.
The gap between people’s convictions and their justifications is also on display in the favorite new sandbox for moral psychologists, a thought experiment devised by the philosophers Philippa Foot and Judith Jarvis Thomson called the Trolley Problem. On your morning walk, you see a trolley car hurtling down the track, the conductor slumped over the controls. In the path of the trolley are five men working on the track, oblivious to the danger. You are standing at a fork in the track and can pull a lever that will divert the trolley onto a spur, saving the five men. Unfortunately, the trolley would then run over a single worker who is laboring on the spur. Is it permissible to throw the switch, killing one man to save five? Almost everyone says “yes.”

Consider now a different scene. You are on a bridge overlooking the tracks and have spotted the runaway trolley bearing down on the five workers. Now the only way to stop the trolley is to throw a heavy object in its path. And the only heavy object within reach is a fat man standing next to you. Should you throw the man off the bridge?

...

When people pondered the dilemmas that required killing someone with their bare hands, several networks in their brains lighted up. One, which included the medial (inward-facing) parts of the frontal lobes, has been implicated in emotions about other people. A second, the dorsolateral (upper and outer-facing) surface of the frontal lobes, has been implicated in ongoing mental computation (including nonmoral reasoning, like deciding whether to get somewhere by plane or train). And a third region, the anterior cingulate cortex (an evolutionarily ancient strip lying at the base of the inner surface of each cerebral hemisphere), registers a conflict between an urge coming from one part of the brain and an advisory coming from another.

But when the people were pondering a hands-off dilemma, like switching the trolley onto the spur with the single worker, the brain reacted differently: only the area involved in rational calculation stood out. Other studies have shown that neurological patients who have blunted emotions because of damage to the frontal lobes become utilitarians: they think it makes perfect sense to throw the fat man off the bridge. Together, the findings corroborate Greene’s theory that our nonutilitarian intuitions come from the victory of an emotional impulse over a cost-benefit analysis.
That's fine, and useful. But the important questions are these: is it bad that we have nonutilitarian ethical calculations arising from irrational emotions? We may find ourselves with the power to change the conditions in which the emotions rule. Should we? Is that an improvement?

We may also find ourselves with the power to change the emotion that rules in these cases, so that emotion still wins, but not in the way it currently does. Should we? Why? What defensible answer is there to the question, "Why?"

Perilous matters, these.

Friday, January 11, 2008

posted by Grim 23:41

Snow in Baghdad:
When I flew in last year, we got rain even though it almost never rains in the summer. People remarked that Iraq must love me, and want to show herself off in her finest and rarest raiments.

So today, on my return, Baghdad had her first snowstorm in a hundred years.
"It is the first time we've seen snow in Baghdad," said 60-year-old Hassan Zahar. "We've seen sleet before, but never snow. I looked at the faces of all the people, they were astonished," he said.

"A few minutes ago, I was covered with snowflakes. In my hair, on my shoulders. I invite all the people to enjoy peace, because the snow means peace," he said.

Traffic policeman Murtadha Fadhil, huddling under a balcony to keep dry, declared the snow "a new sign of the new Iraq."

"It's a sign of hope. We hope Iraqis will purify their hearts and politicians will work for the prosperity of all Iraqis."
That all sounds good to me.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

posted by Eric 20:27

Greedy Geezers.

These sorts of shenanigans are what I'm talking about:

On the eve of a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Indiana Voter ID law has become a story with a twist: One of the individuals used by opponents to the law as an example of how the law hurts older Hoosiers is registered to vote in two states.

Faye Buis-Ewing, 72, who has been telling the media she is a 50-year
resident of Indiana, at one point in the past few years also claimed two states as her primary residence and received a homestead exemption on her property taxes in both states.

Like Lo-Pan said: "This just pisses me off." Not only is the old bag misrepresenting her situation, she and her hubby are collecting tax rebates in two states. This sort of behavior just cannot be tolerated. Because its only going to get worse.

(via Instapundit)
Labels: entitlement mentality, Horrid Old People, Politics, Vote Fraud

Monday, January 07, 2008

posted by Grim 21:37

Dawson County, GA:
Today was my last day home; bright and early tomorrow I return to the fray. I spent the last two days here doing some important chores: fixing the truck, adjusting the water heater, taking down the Christmas tree, etc. Through these various chores I built up a store of trash to take to the dump, so the wee wife and I went over there.

Now, Dawson County Georgia employs convicts -- in the old-fashioned striped pants, even -- to unload the garbage from people's trucks and put it in the dump. The current one has been there a while, which suggests he is a repeat offender. In any event, he's come to know my wife through her weekly visits.

He was excited to see me, but she explained that I was leaving for Iraq the very next day. He nodded sadly, and said to me, "Sir, I really want to thank you for all you folks are doing over there."

Noam Chomsky would have eaten his own liver in despair.

But here in Dawson County we just say: "He's a good lad, really -- just likes to get a bit wild on the weekend."

Saturday, January 05, 2008

posted by Grim 20:18

Lose All The Weight You Want for $500:
Plus, you get to keep the $500.

Friday, January 04, 2008

posted by Eric 19:38

Writing your own epitaph. Or something like that.

Blogger Andrew Olmstead was killed in Iraq, and left something behind to be published in case of his death.

Read it here.

May the earth lie lightly upon him.

(via Instapundit)
Labels: Death, Deployments, Iraq, Men

posted by Joseph W. 15:45

Friday Lyrics:

Sometimes the right song can cheer me up just by thinking about it. During my first tour overseas, at the worst times, when the work wasn't going well and my mistakes were piling up, and the people I wanted to impress were thinking I was a fool and I was inclining to agree, so that southern Iraq was seeming less like a grand opportunity and more like a flat, muddy, buggy piece of ground...this song brought my spirits up again:

I often take these night-shift walks when the foreman's not around.
I turn my back on the cooling stacks and make for open ground.
For out beyond the tank-farm vents, where the gas-flare makes no sound,
I forget the stink and I always think back to that eastern town.

I remember back six years ago this western life I chose,
And every day the news would say, "Some factory's going to close."
Well, I could've stayed to take the dole, but I'm not one of those.
I get nothing free and that makes me -- an idiot, I suppose.

So I bid farewell to that eastern town I nevermore will see.
But work I must, so I eat this dust and breathe refinery.
Oh, I miss the green and the woods and streams, and I don't like cowboy clothes,
But I like being free and that makes me -- an idiot, I suppose.

In the notes to the album, the songwriter is careful to explain that he doesn't necessarily agree with the sentiments expressed in all his songs, but that they're the real voices of people he met in western Canada. An artist who can go beyond himself, to feel and write something like this, is someone I can admire. His lyrics aren't especially clever or innovative (as you can see from the rest of the album), but he has got imagination in the best sense of the word, and that counts for much.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

posted by Joseph W. 15:59

A Splendid Answer:

At Gene Expression, I found a link to Edge, where many scientific and other figures were asked the simple question: What have you changed your mind about, and why?

Some writers we know well are there - Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker - and others I hadn't thought about in ages[1], such the chemist Robert Shapiro (he wrote an excellent popular book on origin-of-life theory back in the eighties). Right next to his entry, I found this one by Sam Harris, worth quoting:
Like many people, I once trusted in the wisdom of Nature. I imagined that there were real boundaries between the natural and the artificial, between one species and another, and thought that, with the advent of genetic engineering, we would be tinkering with life at our peril. I now believe that this romantic view of Nature is a stultifying and dangerous mythology.
Extremely well put. A religious friend of mine once suggested that Man and his works ought, instead, to be considered a part of nature, as much as termite mounds or coral reefs, and while I didn't adopt most of his ideas, that one struck me as very convincing. I remember growing up with this contrary idea that Nature was something fundamentally different from Artifice - that this Nature was in some kind of static, harmonious "balance," that would continue more or less forever if wicked Man did not destroy it. As Harris says:
Every 100 million years or so, an asteroid or comet the size of a mountain smashes into the earth, killing nearly everything that lives. If ever we needed proof of Nature's indifference to the welfare of complex organisms such as ourselves, there it is. The history of life on this planet has been one of merciless destruction and blind, lurching renewal.
Perhaps the opposite view has a strong aesthetic appeal - I have always been emotionally attracted to the idea that our problems are the same as the ancients', and the basic human comedy and tragedy will go on as long as the species does - and if Grim tells me true, many thinkers who spend a lot of time experiencing the outdoors directly incline to spiritual ideas, to the idea that thoughts, and feelings, and perhaps some greater Mind than theirs, are eternal and unchanging. Yet in reading the science I do (in popular versions these days; graduate school is long behind), I can't find room for these eternal entities, or an ordering Power in Nature that thinks and feels, and that wanted humans to be as they are, and fixed them.

But there is a beautiful, hopeful side to this. Our coevals are learning, rapidly, more and ever more about how our minds and bodies are put together - and the technology to improve them will come, if not in our lifetimes, perhaps not long after. We've been able to change the form and abilities of our domestic animals through breeding - something much faster, with greater potential, is on the way.
Nothing in the natural order demands that our descendants resemble us in any particular way. Very likely, they will not resemble us. We will almost certainly transform ourselves, likely beyond recognition, in the generations to come.

Will this be a good thing? The question presupposes that we have a viable alternative. But what is the alternative to our taking charge of our biological destiny? Might we be better off just leaving things to the wisdom of Nature? I once believed this. But we know that Nature has no concern for individuals or for species.
Exactly. Suppose that a team of genetic engineers funded and equipped by a large corporation proceeded to create 10,000 superhuman specimens, supremely intelligent, healthy, naturally hardworking and honest - what would be your response? I would be rejoicing at the thought of all these newcomers might create or discover. Some others, who believe in a Creator, might be troubled at the implications of improving upon His handiwork (though the date suggesting that religiosity itself is heritable should be likewise troubling - if we are judged, in the end, by our beliefs. But theology is flexible, the more thoughtful believers accept a God who can tolerate things they scarce imagined before). (A few small-minded creatures wouldn't get past the naked fear - "They'll outdo me - they'll take my job!") If there's no overarching Order to sustain us "World Without End," there's no overarching Rule to stop us building better lives, better kinds of lives, than have ever existed before.

I come from a civilization far better than my ancestors a few centuries back could imagine - and I think I will die happy, even without descendants, if I expect it will be in better hands, and more vastly improved a century hence than I can hope to imagine.

[1] The author of this opinion might interest some people here, who discuss the merits of wood and plastic in gun butts...the old ways were the way they were for a purpose; and as I argued, roughly, in one of my first comments here, I would rather cultivate the practical spirit of the man who fought with a sword of bronze (because that was the best weapon available) than to try to fight with his actual weapons. But we have talked this over before.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

posted by Grim 22:36

The Land Without A King:
THEN stood the realm in great jeopardy long while, for every lord that was mighty of men made him strong, and many weened to have been king. Then Merlin went to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and counselled him for to send for all the lords of the realm, and all the gentlemen of arms, that they should to London come by Christmas, upon pain of cursing; and for this cause, that Jesus, that was born on that night, that he would of his great mercy show some miracle, as he was come to be king of mankind, for to show some miracle who should be rightwise king of this realm.
I have been gone too long.

I left behind a son I thought invincible; fearless. All his life, five years long, he feared 'neither fire nor iron,' as the heroes of Hrolf Kraki's hall swore they would not. He did not fear heights, nor strangers, nor thunder, nor anything at all. He never had.

Now he is terrified of everything. He clings to every leg, kisses and hugs everyone, as if to plead for kindness. He is given to illness and panic. I never knew how much of his courage was from me; but without me, his mother reminds me, he is only a little boy.

It has been a hard year. His grandmother's ashes will be buried tomorrow. His mother has been gone to care for her. His father has been gone long months, and will be gone long months yet. All the things he knew and trusted were swept away, and he was alone.

This is the message of Le Morte D'Arthur. It is the message of the Beowulf also: that the king is the land, and without his strength the people are broken apart, at the mercy of a merciless world. It is the message of the Odyssey:
There she found the lordly suitors seated on hides of the oxen which they had killed and eaten, and playing draughts in front of the house. Men-servants and pages were bustling about to wait upon them, some mixing wine with water in the mixing-bowls, some cleaning down the tables with wet sponges and laying them out again, and some cutting up great quantities of meat.

Telemachus saw her long before any one else did. He was sitting moodily among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how he would send them flying out of the house, if he were to come to his own again and be honoured as in days gone by.
What have I done to this little boy?

What better men than me have done, I know. I know the reasons and could recite them better than most; and I believe in them. But there is the price, laid plain.